Saturday, September 8, 2018

Rep. Jason Smith, Trump Barometer

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

My congressman, Rep. Jason Smith, is a young Republican lawyer who harbors ambitions to move into the House leadership - where the real money is.   He doesn't ever have "town halls" or announced public meetings where people might show up and air honest opinions that could make him uncomfortable and vulnerable.  Instead, Smith will occasionally hold public phone-ins, where he can speak to a whole group of people at one time over the telephone - a stunt he refers to as "town halls."

The wily politician's favorite and most used form of communication with his constituents is an email newsletter which he sends out every Saturday.  The newsletter only goes to people who have signed up for them, most likely solid members of his own party, and obviously anyone who does not have access to the internet misses out on Smith's weekly dose of political wisdom.

I have taken to using Jason Smith's newsletters as my weekly barometric reading of how well Trump is doing.  Quite often Smith, who was once an unbridled Trump fanatic, fails to even mention his hero.  In this week's installment he did not use Trump's name on the main page, but he did continue a diatribe about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, on an attached page, and there he did use the name of Trump - though in a surprisingly limited manner.

The distance that Jason Smith seems to have put between himself and Donald Trump this week would indicate that Trump's star has dimmed, at least for the time being.  That's not surprising, one must suppose, given the fact that the now infamous New York Times anonymous editorial and Bob Woodward's new book have both been in the news this week - and both were extremely critical of the Trump administration - using words like "chaotic" and "amoral."

Jason Smith's promotion of the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh was interesting - and shameful.  He lamented about the outside groups and Democratic senators who gave the jurist a hard time.  One wonders where Smith's indignation was when his party kept Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland from even being allowed a vote.

"Politics," is apparently "statesmanship" when it is being employed by your party, and disingenuous postering when the other team is controlling the action.

Anyway, it has been a bad week for Donald John Trump - Jason Smith told me so.

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